flu vaccine

Levels of influenza-like illnesses are at an all time high, and doctors' offices and medical care centers are seeing a huge surge of patients not seen since the 2009 swine flu outbreak. Yet with the age of the internet and sites like WebMD comes a new attitude towards doctors -- we trust them, but we trust our Googling capabilites just as much. Dr. Michael Bordieri explains why it could be more beneficial to hand the reins over to the doctor once more.

Sorry, kids. Your pediatrician will probably give you the flu vaccine in the form of a shot this year.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said Tuesday that it doesn't recommend using the flu vaccine that comes as a nasal spray. That's because the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at its performance last year and concluded it wasn't up to snuff.

It seemed like high time to check in on how Americans feel about flu vaccination, so we asked more than 3,000 adults in the latest NPR-Truven Health Analytics Health Poll, conducted during the first half of October.

All told, 62 percent of people said they had been vaccinated or intended to get vaccinated against flu.

Last year's flu vaccine didn't work very well. This year's version should do a much better job protecting people against the flu, federal health officials said Thursday.

An analysis of the most common strains of flu virus that are circulating in the United States and elsewhere found they match the strains included in this year's vaccine, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.